Published on Dec 22, 2005
The kind of blind affection that Playing The
Angel is being received with has got to do with the fact that
this album comes after Depeche Mode’s four-year absence and a lot
of uncertainties regarding the band’s stability. This affection is
the kind that stems from the feeling of gratitude that the band has
released an album at all, even if it’s not a great one.
So is this love warranted? Not all of it. After the
unanimously unpopular minimalist-sounding Exciter, the
follow up record was “hyped” to be DM’s return to the darker and
brawnier sound. Though with Angel the band has made an
attempt to resurrect the bleakness of its pre-Exciter
glory-days, it doesn’t quite reach the desired results, and the
album sounds choppy at times. A part of the reason for this is that
the band has still not gotten itself fully out of Exciter
mode.
Exciter was DM’s experimentation with
minimalism, a new venture for the band that was a hit-and-miss in
some ways. Still, the album was consistent in its laid-back style,
which gave it a distinct mood and a sense of uniqueness, though it
did end up sounding incomplete. However, with Playing The
Angel, DM tries to fight this, and this struggle against the
group’s natural tendency results in an album that lacks the
cohesiveness of most of their other records.
A case in point is the opening track, “A Pain That
I’m Used To.” This track blasts off at the very go with a harrowing
guitar riff matching the distraught meaty feel of Ultra’s “Barrel
Of A Gun.” But, soon after the riff leads to the first verse, the
song transforms into a bareness that cancels out the grandiose
intro completely, making the track far less potent than it ought to
have been. Also, after its mere two verses and two choruses, this
cut fails to develop further, and ends unexpectedly for lack of
ideas.
The same is the case with “John The Revelator” and
“Suffer Well,” which are reminiscent of the ones from the
less-industrial Violator days, and are absolutely brilliant.
But they lack further development of ideas and end too early,
sounding incomplete.
However, the battles in the fight to move against the
irresistible forces of Exciter are won gloriously on “The
Sinner In Me,” “Precious,” “I Want It All,” “Nothing’s Impossible,”
and “Lillian.” The band re-invents the sound of Violator on
these numbers with help from the lessons learned in the fine art of
“industrial” bleakness from Songs Of Faith And Devotion and
Ultra, and does an amazing job at it. “The Sinner In Me” and
“Nothing’s Impossible” tend towards the heavier sound of Faith and
Ultra, “Precious” and “Lillian” resemble the straight-ahead
poignant-pop classiness of “Enjoy The Silence,” and “I Want It All”
reflects the moody arousing effect of “Waiting For The Night.”
Though Angel seems to be musically deficient
in places, the songwriting, as always, is near perfect. Martin
Gore’s lyrical ability, even after 25 years, is still as sharp and
impacting as ever. Gore’s imaginative interpretation of pain is
still as fired up, and so is his clever wordplay, something which
has always been a unique feature of his songs.
Angel marks the debut of Dave Gahan as a
song-writer with DM. Gahan has put to use the lessons learned in
song-writing from his solo effort, and has written three tracks —
“Suffer Well, “Nothing’s Impossible” and “I Want It All” — on
Angel. Gahan’s words are as intelligent as Gore’s, and his
cuts blend in perfectly with Gore’s, which is saying a lot about
his lyrical ability.
But unlike Gore’s wonderful singing appearances on
other DM records, the Gore-sung songs on Angel are dismal.
“Macro” and “Damaged People” are not only the album’s weakest, but
also the band’s. These oddly-composed cuts on Angel clearly
stand out as the group’s worst in years.
Angel is not a classic like the other Depeche
Mode records. However, it is a decent comeback from a difficult
phase of Exciter’s sloppy experimentation. Though Angel may
be a bit sketchy, it is nevertheless a solid effort. But since the
band has set such high expectations with its other albums, it is
sometimes impossible for it to meet these expectations. After all,
being one of the greatest bands in the history of contemporary
music does come with its pitfalls.